Gary Bettman

November 26th is a very important day for the National Hockey League, and not only because it's professional hockey's 96th birthday. On Tuesday, the league announced a new deal with five Canadian broadcasters, changing the landscape of televised hockey distribution in the country for the next 12 years. The deal, worth $5.2 billion and one of the biggest media rights deals in Canadian history, will strip hockey coverage away from Bell Media-owned TSN and RDS, instead distributing English-language coverage of games between the publicly funded CBC -- retaining its iconic Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday nights but losing certain privileged like the All-Star Game and s...

After a long process involving the NHL, NHLPA, and the International Olympic Committee, the NHL schedule was finally released on Friday.

The 47th season of Flyers hockey will begin as a member of the newly named Metropolitan Division as part of a new realignment venture. This division contains the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes.

Say goodbye to some of the longest-standing rivalries in the game, and say hello to some of the most manufactured rivalries in the game. The NHL, NHLPA and NHL Board of Governors approved the new realignment to be put into service starting next year, lasting a minimum of three seasons.

The new plan is contingent on some ridiculous rotation because of lopsided divisions of eight teams in the east, and seven teams in the west. Thanks to the strange geographical landscape that the NHL has employed, teams have had to be at the mercy of some wide open swaths of the United States and Canada that are uninhabited by NHL clubs.

Many NHL fans were clamoring for both Donald Fehr and Gary Bettman to be locked in a room without the option of leaving until a new CBA deal was agreed upon. That is basically what took place last night.

Several months later, a 16-hour negotiating process that ended around 5 AM Sunday morning resulted in a new CBA that is in the process of being ironed out on paper. The deal is a 10-year agreement with an opt-out clause that is available at eight years (Photo credit: shot7photos/Flickr).

The lockout is over as the NHL and the NHLPA have tentatively agreed on a new CBA. There is work to be done to make the deal official and more importantly to win back the fans. It was an embarrassment but as a fan it is good to have hockey back.

At this very moment, the ice of the outdoor rink is glimmering in the sunlight in anticipation of its annual Winter Classic that will take place this evening. Gary Bettman and the National Hockey League may have canceled the NHL Winter Classic that was to be played between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings, but that's not stopping a talented group of hockey players from getting together for the annual Danglers Winter Classic.

The Danglers are a men's league hockey team that I started years ago in order to keep my friends and I together on the ice. High school was over, and many of us were going away to college or starting to work full-time. Every summer, the Danglers were put together through the Midnight Hockey League on Long Island and have continued to go strong for five years.

There might not be any NHL hockey to watch this season, but the Islanders have some young and talented skaters that are developing nicely with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.; Brock Nelson is one of them.

Nelson was selected by the Islanders 30th overall in the first round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft and spent two years playing with the University of North Dakota. In his sophomore season, Nelson scored 47 points in 42 games, earning him a brief stint with the Sound Tigers at the end of the 2012 season.

He did not put up any points in the four games he dressed in for the Sound Tigers. This year, however, has been an entirely different story.

As the old song goes, "it's the most wonderful time of the year," right? For the NHL and the NHL Players Association, it isn't even close to the most wonderful time of the year.

The soggy, foggy, dreary conditions in New York City on this day lend to the atmosphere of what just transpired at the latest round of meetings between the two feuding parties. The holiday cheer is gone. Good luck reviving it.

Last week, commissioner Gary Bettman advised that a group of players and a group of owners should come together in one spot and hash everything out without both Bettman and NHLPA boss Donald Fehr in the room. It was the duo's inability to sort anything out t...

For many of you, the NHL lockout has left a major void in our lives. The NHL Network plays old games here and there, but we already know the outcome. It's just not the same. We yearn for fresh ice, new plays and flashy highlights that keep our love for the game as strong as it's ever been. (Photo Credit: IslesPunkFan/Flickr)

But the NHL lockout is testing us.

Some fans can turn to football. It's an aggressive sport, like hockey, and one that is loved by the majority of Americans.

But I'm not the biggest football fan. I'll turn a game on here or there, but do I really want to replace dropping the gloves and thrilling OT wins with this?